Police: Muslims being targeted in possible Fort Morgan hate crimes

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

(Photo: MGN Online)

Police: Muslims being targeted in possible Fort Morgan hate crimes

(Photo: MGN Online)

FORT MORGAN, Colo. — The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations is calling for the FBI’s help to assist in an investigation into a series of attacks on East African Muslims in Fort Morgan.

Over the last 10 odd days, the group says nine cars in Fort Morgan have been vandalized. CAIR says all of those cars belong to Muslim refugees. Many of the cars have had windows smashed in, others have been spray painted with racially-motivated messages demanding the vehicle’s owner leave the country.

Fort Morgan Police also confirmed that five vehicles were had sustained damage from being shot with a BB gun during the early morning hours of Sunday, March 2. Most of the vehicles were found near 610 Lake Street, which is just north of West Platte Avenue, between Main Street and Sherman Street.

This is part of a pattern of violence against this Muslim group, CAIR says, citing that less than three years ago, eight cars belonging to North African refugees were vandalized in a similar fashion in the same community.

“Because of the apparent bias motive for these attacks and because they seem to target a religious and ethnic minority, we urge the FBI to assist local and state law enforcement agencies in the investigation,” CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper said.

There is no word yet on whether the FBI has agreed to help with any sort of investigation. Fort Morgan Police are looking into the incidents.

In just the past few days, several East African refugees experienced hatred from racist vandals in their adopted home of Fort Morgan, Colorado. They took refuge in Colorado to escape the constant fear and hatred from warlords that had taken over their native countries.

Confident that they’d be safe in small town USA, they relocated to Fort Morgan. Now, with broken windows and profanity written on their cars they are again in fear for their lives and questioning if they can even be safe here.

If we could comfort these victims, we’d say these are the actions of a few hateful racists, and that this type of behavior is not typical of law abiding, democracy loving Americans. We’d tell them Americans soldiers have fought and died to up hold the Civil Rights of all citizens living in the United States.

We know however, these hateful actions overshadow all the good people that live and work in Fort Morgan. Overcoming these horrible deeds requires the opposite reaction. It requires the people of Fort Morgan to take responsibility for their community, which includes the victims of these hate crimes; to comfort them in this time of need, to calm the fear that it will happen again and to identify the racists who perpetrated these hateful and ignorant acts of violence.

These hateful acts will not only change those injured by this violence, this will change the face of the community itself. However, all wounds can heal, they just require the correct treatment, and for healing to begin in Fort Morgan will require helping the victims and exposing those that perpetrated these repulsive acts.